Telecommunication systems provide numerous services requiting both broadband and narrowband capabilities to the corporate and individual subscriber. These services normally require that each customer be provided with wide bandwidth communications transmission media (e.g., cable or fiber) for broadband services and with narrowband transmission media (e.g., twisted pair) for narrowband services if all needed services are to be accommodated. This hard-wired physical media-based capability is expensive to install and maintain and the associated capital may be unrecoverable if the end user decides to change the service provider after installation. These same costs may also limit system deployment if these costs become prohibitive and fail to yield profitable life cycle economics.
However, wireless systems have inherent flexibility because of their untethered nature. If the end user changes carriers, no capital is stranded, since the wireless termination device can be recovered and redeployed.